> From: Ryan yahoo
>
> My Polaris has a similar wiring job after it blew up on stage
> on me a few years back. I'd recommend to just leave it as is.
> While the new connections can fail, they are way better than
> the previous plastic ribbon cables and IMO should last a
> while. Also, there is always a risk of damage by switching to
> the new panel and I wouldn't mess with it if it is currently
> working. I've seen a good number of complaints about the
> membrane switches that were actually attributable to the
> faulty ribbon cable connecting the panel.

A lot of people seem to have some sort of misconception about these
things. There are no ribbon cables connecting the Polaris panels to the
boards. Those "ribbons" are the tails of the membrane panels themselves.
They are just extensions of the upper and lower circuit layers in the
panel. The stuff they're made out of, which cracks in time, is the same as
the stuff that the rest of the panels are made out of. I've even seen the
switches themselves develop little circular cracks, coming all the way up
to the surface of the panel.

There are no risks of damaging anything by changing the panels, other than
the always present possibility that when you're handling anything, you
might drop it. The replacement panels get rid of all the old stuff, down
to the painted metal. The only difficulty I've observed is that fragments
of the old tails occasionally lodge in the connectors, causing shorts, or
making it impossible to push the new tails all the way in, causing opens.
These bits can be difficult to dislodge, and in one case on one of my
units I had to replace one of the connectors.

In this particular case, the connectors have already been removed, and
need to be replaced anyway. (They look like KK-100 style right-angle
headers.) Someone inexperienced at soldering could possibly do some damage
in the process of removing these replacement connectors, such as pulling
the plate-throughs out of the holes, but those are the sorts of things
that can be patched easily enough with a blob of solder or a bit of wire.

--

Ciao, Paul D. DeRocco
Paul mailto:pderocco@...